In his annual address in Nagpur on Vijayadashami, RSS chief Shri Mohan Bhagwat expressed his concern over the increasing population in the country and called for the idea of ​​population policy. He said that the growth and imbalance of population is becoming a big problem in the country and there is a need to make a holistic policy keeping in mind the coming 50 years. The mention of important topics like population growth and balance by the Sangh chief is very timely. This is such a formidable problem facing us that if it is not stopped in time, it can put the very existence of the nation in jeopardy.

Last July, the United Nations presented a report titled 'World Population Possibility-2022', according to which the world's population will be 8 billion on 15 November and about 10 billion by 2050 and this increase is mainly limited to eight countries in which India is predominant. Today 18 percent of the world's population lives in our country, which is only 2.4 percent of the world's total land. We were 121 crores in the 2011 census, which has now increased to over 130 crores and will soon overtake China and reach the top position in the world.

Due to this huge growth of population, the time to come will be full of challenges. Giving minimum quality of life to every person of the country will be an impossible goal for the policy makers of our country. When the population reaches an explosive state, it starts growing disproportionately with the resources, so it is necessary to stabilize it. According to British economist Malthus, population grows at twice the rate of increase in resources. We are seeing this in our country also. Today the pace of our development is very fast, but the population growth is more than that. Due to this inequality, India, while moving towards development, lags behind in global indices.

Increasing population is a very big issue today. For this, there is a need to work beyond narrow class thinking and partisan selfishness. Rapid increase in population has an adverse effect on everyone. Stress on natural resources, their excessive exploitation, decrease in production, adverse effects on environment, climate change, famine, flood, drought and consequently decrease in per capita income, poverty, unemployment, inadequate living, malnutrition, epidemics and epidemic diseases etc. The growing population is responsible for all these.

But with population growth, population imbalance is also an important issue, which was mentioned by the Sangh chief. Actually, population balance is the basis of social balance. The imbalance of population can pose a threat to the existence and identity of the country. India is identified with the virtues of ‘Sarvapanth Sambhav’ and ‘Vasudhaivadha Kutumbhakam’. The fact is that this identity has been created because of the majority society here. The imbalance of population can erase this cultural identity. Time has come to think seriously in this direction. The Muslim population in India has increased nearly 2.5 times in the last decade. This is at the heart of concerns related to education, health, growing bigotry and non-violence. This is what the RSS chief mentioned. On World Population Day last July, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's concern over the increasing population of a particular section was also in this context. His and the Sangh chief's concern needs to be seen in a healthy context, rather than from a religious point of view. It is a universal truth that in order to maintain the democratic system of the country, it is necessary to control the population of all classes, otherwise if the population of a particular class continues to grow abnormally, then along with the problems related to the proper distribution of resources in the country situations of anarchy can even arise, the example of which we can see from the many news reports in the media in the past.

The RSS chief, while talking on a figure regarding the population growth rate, said, "Due to the huge difference in population growth rate between the years 1951 to 2011, the proportion of followers of the sects that originated in India decreased from 88 percent to 83.8 percent in the country's population. percent, while the proportion of Muslim population has increased from 9.8 percent to 14.23 percent. He also said that "the huge difference in the population growth rate of different communities, the increasing imbalance in the proportion of the population of the country's overall population, especially in the border areas due to continuous foreign infiltration and conversion, has become a serious cause of crisis for the unity, integrity and cultural identity of the country."

Religion based population imbalance is an important issue which cannot be ignored. Population imbalance leads to change in geographical boundaries, which was mentioned by Sh Mohan Bhagwat. For example, he mentioned East Timor, South Sudan and Kosovo, which were created by the deteriorating population balance in the country of origin. The time has come for serious brainstorming on population policy. There should be a holistic policy that treats all equally. The Common Civil Code will be the first meaningful step for this.